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1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to telecommunications and hand-held wireless devices; and more particularly, to a premises telephonic interface system allowing a telephonic device to communicate over a hand-held wireless device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Consumers are increasingly using cellular and other wireless technology to make and receive telephone calls. The deployment of more cellular networks and the technological advances in cellular phone technology have resulted in more consumers using hand-held wireless communications devices. Many consumers have become reliant of these hand-held wireless devices for their communications needs.
Moreover, many cellular service carriers offer economically advantageous cellular packages where a consumer pays on a monthly basis for a certain quantity of airtime minutes. Typically, the more minutes purchased, the less the average minute charge. Additionally, many cellular carriers do not charge customers an additional fee for long distance calls placed using their cellular service. In many instances, a consumer may save money by placing long distance calls over their cellular phone, rather than pay for long distance charges incurred by making a call using their residential wire-based local phone service provider. Therefore, consumers will in many instances desire to use their wireless phone at home.
However, depending on the wireless service, the wireless reception might only work in a portion of a consumers house (i.e., upstairsxe2x80x94not in the downstairs or basement). This becomes problematic when receiving cellular calls at home as a consumer might miss a call because the consumer is in a part of the location which does not get adequate reception, or the consumer might leave the phone in a suitable location (e.g., upstairs) and have to rush to the phones location when it rings. In many situations, consumers already have telephones connected throughout their location (e.g., residence, business). Consumers therefore desire a mechanism to allow them to access their cellular phone using any telephone at their location, while maintaining the convenience and mobility of the hand-held communications device.
Certain wireless equipment providers offer cellular fixed wireless terminals. These wireless terminals allow the connection of telephonic devices from which wireless calls can be placed and received. Furthermore, a wireless terminal can activate all phone jacks at a single location for placing and receiving wireless calls using the same phone number when the wireless terminal is connected to a standard phone jack. These wireless terminals operate via A.C. power or battery. Although some carriers allow the same cellular phone number or calling plan to be used by two different cellular communications devices, many do not and typically consumers are required to pay a surcharge for such convenience. Moreover, these wireless terminals do not provide hand-held convenience or mobility, nor do they additionally interface a telephone network to allow a consumer to select which network to use to place the call, nor allow calls to be simultaneously placed over the wireless and telephone networks.
According to the invention, a method and apparatus are disclosed for allowing a consumer to place wireless calls over their hand-held wireless communications device from telephones connected through-out their location, while keeping the convenience and flexibility of a hand-held communications device. Additionally, the present invention allows simultaneous calls to be placed over wireless and telephone network using different connected standard telephonic devices. Furthermore, connected telephonic devices can select which network to place a call, which provides additional convenience and personal security, especially in an emergency situation when only one of the networks is accessible.
More specifically, the present invention includes a communications premises station system for receiving a hand-held wireless communications device which communicates with a wireless network and has a premises station interface. The communications premises station system has one or more telephonic interfaces for communicating with one or more telephonic devices (e.g., telephones, facsimile machines, computers).
When the hand-held wireless communications device is placed in premises station (similar to a battery charger cradle), the hand-held wireless communications device electrically connects to communications premises station system. The premises station can either be a physically separate unit or incorporated into the communications premises station system. A call processing element of the communications premises station system exchanges signaling information with the hand-held wireless communications device, and converts incoming signals from the hand-held wireless communications device to incoming signals to the telephonic device, and converts outgoing signals from the telephonic device to outgoing signals to the hand-held wireless communications device. In this manner, when the hand-held wireless communications device is placed in the premises station, wireless telephonic calls can be placed from and received by a telephonic device connected to the communications premises station system.
The wireless network is typically a cellular network; however the present invention is not so limited. Rather, the present invention allows this to be based on a consumer choice of which wireless provider and communications device to use. The communications premises station system also provides D.C. power, indications of on-hook and off-hook conditions, ring current, ring-back tones and busy tones to the connected telephonic devices.
Moreover, the present invention also allows the communications premises station system to be connected to a standard telephone network so that connected telephonic devices can communicate both over the wireless and the telephone networks. Additionally, an embodiment of the present invention includes a switching mechanism which allows for a single connected telephonic device to selectively switch between the wireless and telephone networks. Moreover, when two or more telephonic devices are connected to the communications premises station system, simultaneous calls can be placed over the wireless and telephone networks.